November 04, 2008	Tuesday	Ziqa'ad 5, 1429

BERLIN, Nov 3: A Pakistani restaurant owner in Germany is under investigation for a fire at his establishment that was initially blamed on neo-Nazis, prosecutors said on Monday.

Police arrived at the cafe in the northeastern town of Karow late last month to find charred furniture, racist slurs and Nazi swastikas sprayed on the walls and the cash register pried open.

The case drew official condemnation and warnings that right-wing extremists were seeking to whip up racist sentiment ahead of local elections next year.

But a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in the regional capital Schwerin said investigators had now turned the spotlight on the 41-year-old proprietor.

A number of factors had created the “preliminary suspicion” that the fire was made to look like a racist arson attack, perhaps as part of an attempt at insurance fraud.

“For example the swastikas were painted on backwards,” he said.

Foreign-owned businesses are occasional targets of neo-Nazi and racist attacks in Germany, particularly in the depressed former communist east of the country. —AFP